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by DYLAN NOLAN
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Parents in Charleston County, South Carolina have grown increasingly frustrated with the Coastal Carolina Aquatic Association (CCAA) – a local swim league that has reportedly allowed male swimmers to compete against biological females.
This has reportedly been done without the knowledge or consent of the girls’ parents.
Sources familiar with the league tell FITSNews the issue began in 2025 when the parent of a male youth asked permission for him to wear female attire and swim with the girls – a request league leadership reportedly permitted coaches to use their discretion in deciding whether to honor.
While many parents were initially unaware of the situation, awareness spread – and eventually tuning into anger as parents demanded league leaders explain why they were forcing their daughters to compete against a boy (and why this was never clearly communicated to them).
This is a highly relevant issue in the sport of swimming – where males have advantageous limb length, lung capacity, bone density and other biological factors that prevent female competitors from going up against them on a level playing field.
This issue was addressed nationally and internationally by major sport regulatory bodies including the National College Athletics Association (NCAA) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) after swimmer Lia Thomas rose to infamy four years ago. Thomas ascended from the lower ranks of the male swimming world to the upper echelons of female swimming – after identifying as transgender.
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RELATED | THIS. MUST. STOP
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Fast forward to 2026: CCAA leaders have proposed a solution (.pdf) – banning boys from competing against girls for points, but allowing them to continue competing against them in “exhibition” match scenarios.
In an email sent to league officials, a parent expressed their discontent with this proposal – noting “CCAA is still not formally addressing exhibition, use of facilities, and rules for gender based participation.”
Non-scored “exhibition” races are more important than they may initially seem due to the way swimming meets are scored, since only the top athletes race for points. Accordingly, the proposed solution would mean many girls would never have the opportunity to swim exclusively against competitors of their own gender.
Parents have written multiple messages to league officials – noting that preventing boys from blowing out girls in point-scoring matches acknowledges the inherent unfairness of allowing boys to compete against girls (but fails to address the fact that this same fundamental unfairness applies to non-scored heats).
In an email to coach Mike Walsh – who is also a highly-decorated head swim coach at Charleston’s prestigious Porter-Gaud school – parent and former coach Michael Mulé voiced his wish that boys and girls be separated beyond competitive matches.
Mulé noted the proposal “acknowledges an important truth: that it is not fair for swimmers to compete for points outside of their biological sex.”
“If the committee has determined that competing for points outside one’s biological sex undermines fairness, then the same fairness concern applies to all swimmers in that heat and event,” Mulé wrote.
In swim meets, non-scored races “still affect lane assignments, seeding, heat structure, psychological dynamics, and competitive experience for the other swimmers, even if no points are awarded,” Mulé continued.
Beyond competitive concerns that exist in the league’s proposed solution, the ongoing failure to clarify how children will be protected from being forced to be nude in front of swimmers of the other sex – or exposed to nude members of the other sex – has stunned parents.
This hypothetical scenario became a disturbing reality for Lowcountry parents in 2025 when a male swimmer began to use the female changing facilities at the Northbridge Terrace Pool.
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In a 2025 email to the pool’s board governing board, Mulé expressed his displeasure with the situation – writing that it is “neither appropriate nor acceptable for young girls, my daughter included, to be placed in a situation where they are forced to undress in front of a biological boy and witness a biological boy undress in front of them.”
“This is not simply a matter of personal preference – there is compelling developmental research supporting the need to protect children from being placed in situations that are beyond their emotional and cognitive maturity,” Mulé added.
He went on the cite the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which found that “early school-age children are in a stage of development where they begin to understand bodily autonomy, privacy and modesty,” as such “forcing them into settings where these boundaries are blurred can cause confusion and distress.”
These concerns only heighten with age, putting the parents of girls in the uncomfortable position of potentially being forced to expose them to a nude pubescent male in order for them to participate in swimming.
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While the CCAA is a private entity, several of the teams which participate in the league – and the facilities which host their meets – are public entities subject to Act 193 of 2022 – also known as the “Save Women’s Sports Act” – which dictates that publicly-funded, gender-segregated sports teams must utilize the athlete’s gender on their birth certificate.
The act created civil causes of action in the event institutions failed to uphold these standards.
A vote on the adoption of the CCAA’s proposed rules has been scheduled for Tuesday evening (February 17, 2026) at the North Charleston Town Hall. Team representatives and coaches are welcome to attend, but parents and members of the public are not invited.
Count on FITSNews to keep close tabs on this issue as parents continue to reach out to us with their concerns.
If you’d like to contact the author of this story with additional information, please do so by emailing Dylan@FITSNews.com.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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7 comments
I swam competitively from 6 through college, then taught, coached, officiated or participated as a masters swimmer until I finally retired from competitive swimming for good at age 60.
Up until about age 8, boys and girls are fairly even in the water. From 10-12, girls actually show slightly better skills and have an edge as they gain coordination/control earlier than most boys. However, once testosterone enters the picture, it’s game over.
The current men’s 50 meter free, long course record time is 20.89, the women’s record is 22.83 – almost two seconds slower in a single length. The boy’s record (18 and under) is 21.71 – the girls is 23.66. The boy’s record holder beat the best girl in the world by almost two seconds and beats the best woman in the world by over a full second – in one length of the pool. In fact, the best female swimmer in the world, Katie Ledecky has a record 8.08 800 meter freestyle time in the 2020 world championships the male 18 and under time is 7.32.
Boys will have an advantage from puberty on. Any boy who “discovers their gender is female” after puberty will have an advantage and for every year after the onset of puberty, the advantage will multiply. Lia Thomas who still has male genitals was at best a mediocre male collegiate swimmer, by tucking their penis and growing their hair, Thomas managed to set records as “a woman swimmer”. They are 6’1 with the shoulders (73 inch wingspan) and lung capacity of a 6’1″ male competing against females who average about 5’4″ with a wingspan of 65 inches and have a reduced lung capacity (Katies Ledeckey is 6’0″ with a 73.5 inch wingspan)
Michal Phelps the greatest men’s swimmer is 6’4″ with a 6’7″ wingspan and size 14 feet. Those freakish dimensions are one of the keys to his success. His 800 time oddly is a slow 8.06 but he’s a short distance specialist with 28 Olympic medals and has set more than 29 world records, even after being retired for 10 years, he still co-holds 2 of those 39 records.
Conservatives spend a lot of time thinking about this kind of stuff, huh?
It’s beautiful thing, huh !!!
This article is very misleading in the description of the “female changing facilities” at Northbridge Pool. It’s a bathroom with stalls! Nobody is walking around nude!
And?
Is it just me or does the author look suspiciously like the swimmer in question?
What is your point boy?